The placard read "it is time to water the tree of liberty!" - but it was not a water pistol strapped to the thigh of the protester waiting for Barack Obama, but a real gun.
William Kostnic was waiting near the town hall at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the president was due to address a meeting on his bitterly contentious plans for healthcare reform - but the 9mm pistol in the leg holster strapped outside his jeans was perfectly legal.
In New Hampshire, as police informed an MSNBC television reporter, who duly passed on the news to his stunned anchorman, only carrying a concealed weapon is illegal.
Kostnic's gun could hardly have been less concealed, and he was also standing on private property, in the grounds of a church near the town hall.
Obama, according to a new book, is already receiving more death threats than any other American president, and the demonstrations as he tries to win support for his healthcare reforms are becoming daily more passionate. "One day God is going to stand before you and judge you!" one protester shouted earlier this week at Democratic Senator Arlen Specter during a heated exchange when the issue of healthcare arose at a local meeting.
However even in a country where guns are often seen as a man's God-given right, television images of the armed protester shocked many viewers.
"Just to be clear," the baffled MSNBC anchor said to the reporter on the scene. "You're saying a guy has a gun in the open - where we already know there are concerns about every president's safety, but certainly this president ... and the guy's just being allowed to stay there? Is that right?"
The reporter replied that the chief of police had told him: "The law allows this man to be here."
The phrase "time to water the tree of liberty" - a reference to a famous quotation from Thomas Jefferson, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - is also frequently used by a right wing group called Stormfront , motto White Pride World Wide.